The fact that she knew she was home to stay didn’t make her unsophisticated. The island called to her sense of poetry, history and sheer appreciation of beauty. She wasn’t hiding here. She certainly wasn’t remembering how she’d found her last boyfriend in bed with the girl from Merry Maids.
After learning from the harbormaster that the research team was renting slip forty-two, she made her way down the pier, past a variety of speedboats, cabin cruisers and yachts.
She’d nearly reached her destination when it occurred to her that they might even now be at the wreck site scavenging for valuables. The vision of that atrocity had her quickening her pace.
With great relief, she saw a large cabin cruiser with the script Miami Heat bobbing next to the dock. Three men were standing on the bow of the boat. None of them was Gavin Fortune.
They noticed her approach, and the swarthy, Hispanic-looking one approached her with a smile. “Looking for Dr. Fortune? ”
How had he known? “As a matter of fact, I am.”
His grin widened. “I bet I could help.”
“That’s very kind of you to offer, but I really need to see him.”
Shrugging, the man extended his hand to help her on board, then swept his arm in the direction of the boat’s stern. “He’s already turned away three today, señorita, but buena suerte to you.”
Thanking him, Brenna rolled her shoulders. She’d take all the good luck she could get. But what three—
Her steps faltered. Three women. He’d already had others coming to find him. And she’d bet her entire collection of first-edition Yeatses that they hadn’t come to call him out about his unethical research practices.
Were the women of Palmer’s Island that hard up?
She found him leaning against the railing at the very back of the boat and focusing on a stack of papers held in his hand.
She was somewhat prepared for the wavy, sandy-brown hair, pulled into a short ponytail at the nape of his neck, but as she moved toward him, he lifted his head. His hazel eyes and the disarming dimples in his cheeks had a lot more impact live and in person than on her computer screen or in the newspaper.
But the circumstance that had her heart threatening to jump out of her chest was the fact that he was wearing a wet suit. At least from the waist down. The top half of him—all tan skin and lean muscle—was completely bare.
He sighed as she continued to stare at him mutely. “Let me guess, you’re an amateur diver and you’ve always been fascinated by history.”
She blinked at his deep voice, heavy on the Southern accent. Texas maybe. With reluctance, she raised her gaze to his face.
And all the moisture in her mouth dried instantly.
“Ah … no,” she managed to say.
He straightened to his full height—a solid six-three—then strode toward her. “Look, honey, I’ve got a lot of work to do, so …” He stopped a few inches away, and she broke out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the blazing summer sun overhead. “How tall are you?”
By now, she should be used to the question, but he managed to startle her anyway. “Is that relevant?”
“You can’t be over five feet.”
She glanced down at her platform sandals, which added a good four inches to her height, and defiantly told the truth. “Four-eleven and three-quarters.”
When she looked up again, his gaze was pinned to hers. “What do you do?”
“I’m a teacher.”
“History? Social studies?”
Finally getting her bearings with his remarkable looks, she crossed her arms over her chest. “English literature, if you must know. Again, how is that relevant?”
“Oh, hell. Another Brontë groupie.”
“I prefer Jane Austen.”
If possible, he looked even more disappointed. “I was in a good mood today. I really was.” He folded the papers in his hand, then walked past her toward the cabin area in the center of the boat.
Seeing little choice, Brenna followed him and didn’t dare drop her gaze to see the back view of the skintight wet suit. “It’s urgent that I speak with you, Mr. Fortune.”
To her surprise, he didn’t correct her about his title, fake as it might be. “It’s Gavin, and I’m sure your cause is extremely important, but I have work to do.” In the doorway of the cabin, he turned. “If you’ll excuse me …”
Then he slid the door closed.
For several seconds, Brenna stood mutely on the other side of the glass barrier with her jaw hanging open. Only the prospect of humiliatingly facing Sloan and telling her she’d been aroused, intimidated, then turned away in less than three minutes by the same man she’d called the devil forced her to wrap her hand around the chrome handle and push the door aside.
Inside the cabin was a table bracketed on either side by black vinyl bench seats, a matching sofa on the opposite side of the boat, a kitchen area and a roomy cockpit. On the stern end was a closed door, presumably leading to a bedroom. Since Fortune was nowhere in sight, she assumed he’d gone into these private quarters.
She tapped on the door. “Mr. Fortune, I represent the Palmer’s Island Historical Society, and it’s imperative that I speak with you.”
Silence.
Pressing her ear to the door, she thought she heard water running. Was he in the shower?
Fine. She could wait.
She sat on the sofa and mentally recited Robert Frost poems to keep her mind from wandering to the sure-to-be-enticing-and-distracting visual of Gavin Fortune standing naked under a spicket of water.
“The Road Not Taken,” however, simply led her to stare in the direction of the closed bedroom door and wonder what lay beyond.
With monumental concentration, she reminded her libido she wasn’t some creepy celebrity chaser. She was here with a serious purpose. She had justice, history and truth on her side.
He walked out in khaki shorts and nothing else.
She literally bowed her head. Was the man determined to derail her indignation?
To further annoy and embarrass her, he didn’t even notice she was sitting on the sofa until after he’d retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and turned to head back to the bedroom.
“How did you get in here?” he demanded, grinding to a halt.
Pleased she’d finally caught him off guard, she crossed her legs. “I opened the door.”
“Then use it to go back out. I’m really very busy.”
When he started toward the bedroom again, she lurched off the sofa directly into his path. The scent of sea air and woody citrus wafted from his skin, and she fought not to inhale too deeply. Droplets of water still clung to his wavy hair, which, released from its binding, hung nearly to his shoulders. If possible, the change made him even more attractive.
She cleared her throat. “Mr. Fortune, I represent the Palmer’s Island Historical Society, and—”
“Why not the Society for the Defense of Boring Books? Or the Society for Unnecessary Exposition?”
Brenna narrowed her eyes, but she wasn’t lowering herself to his insulting level.
Before she could so much as open her mouth, however, he rolled on. “Look, honey, I meet your type in every town I go to.”
Brenna didn’t think it was possible to be more insulted or enraged. Yet